I can see the reasoning behind freeing iPhones and iPads from needing a PC, but I don't see how it would be workable. There is already a 20mb-size download limit in place, and all of a sudden millions of iOS devices are going to be downloading hundreds of megabytes in updates?! That's a pretty big chunk out of a monthly data plan--assuming in the first place that people even have that much data available.

It might be possible to do it all over wi-fi, but how big can the market be for people who don't want a PC but are happy to maintain a wi-fi network?

The 20Mb limit is imposed by Apple - The Steve giveth and the Steve can taketh away. For me (and I imagine many), it's not so much about not needing a PC at all, but about not needing it for my iPad. Anyway, I think the sort of people this speculation is aimed at wouldn't be downloading as much as someone who actually needs a laptop or desktop. The tablet will never be a replacement for serious productivity, media creation, etc., if for no other reason than screen size. But all will be revealed in, what, 2.5 days?

"I don't believe there's a power in the 'verse that can stop Kaylee from being cheerful...

...Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month."

I believe that is partially imposed by the telcos, and they are the ones that will inevitably put the kybosh on iCloud. I generally only listen to podcasts on my iPhone/iPad which come in at 160MB each - 10MB above my current data allowance. So that gives me less than 2 hours music per month that I could potentially access. At present, I tend to go through about 5GB a month (I have music going pretty much all day every day!).

When the Telco's offer us unlimited data, then and only then will the (i)Cloud be of any value.

Here's some interesting insight from John Gruber on iCloud.... This is just his thoughts on what it could be... In a few hours we will find out for real:

"Don’t think of iCloud as the new MobileMe; think of iCloud as the new iTunes.

Syncing data between devices tends to work best when there’s a canonical store. I.e. with Dropbox, you might have three, four, five devices syncing data on the same account. The canonical central store, however, is Dropbox’s cloud-based server. With iPhones, iPods, and iPads, the central store for almost all data stored on the devices is iTunes running on your Mac or PC.

With iCloud, that should shift to the cloud. iTunes, the desktop app, currently syncs the following things with iOS devices: audio, movies and TV shows, iBooks e-books, App Store apps, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, notes, and any sort of files shared between iOS apps. All of these things would be better served syncing over-the-air via the so-called cloud.

But even if “iCloud is the new iTunes” really is the right way to frame the service, it will by nature be at least somewhat in conflict with MobileMe, insofar as the major selling points of MobileMe include cloud-based syncing of bookmarks, contacts, calendars, and files. Whatever you think of MobileMe’s value as a $99 per year service today, it is going to look like a worse deal tomorrow if the only thing it has left that isn’t part of iCloud is an email account and (admittedly, very nicely done) web-based interfaces to email/contacts/calendars/files. iCloud may well obviate much of MobileMe simply as a side effect.

But in short let’s just think about the ways that iCloud might be a major, dare I say game-changing, step away from USB tethering between iOS devices and iTunes running on your Mac/PC. Consider just the new out-of-box experience. Rather than “Take this out, plug it into your Mac or PC (after first making sure your Mac/PC is running the latest version of iTunes), wait for it to sync before you actually play with it”, you might get something like “Take this out, turn it on, sign into your iTunes account, and start playing with it.”

If Apple can work out (or, if we can dream, perhaps secretly already has worked out) a deal to allow movies, in addition to music, to be bought and stored permanently in your iCloud account, then the Apple TV 2 suddenly changes from a machine for renting movies into a machine for buying or renting movies. I like to buy movies, so here’s hoping."